Tikimaster.com's newest and coolest tiki is on fire!! This Madam Pele tiki will bring warmth to your home and is a great gift. Here's a little information about the Queen of Fire Tiki; Madam Pele.
She was the daughter of the Earth Goddess Haumea and dwells in the Kilauea volcano. This wild and fiery goddess is widely venerated in Hawaii and other parts of Polynesia. When eruptions threaten towns it is thought that Pele is angry. Her volcanoes are both destroyers and creators of the earth, since her flowing lava makes new land. Pele's husband, the Pig God Kamapua'a, is the inventor of agriculture. Notice the spouting "lava crest" of her comb headdress. Tikimaster's version of Madam Pele was adapted from the 19th century carved wood image, which resides in the Museum of Man, in Paris, France.

Madam Pele grants good luck if you respect her wishes which is to respect the land. It is believed that if you take a piece of lava rock from one of the Hawaiian volcanoes, Pele will put a curse on you until you return the lava.

If you feel like you've been cursed by Madam Pele, we at Tikimaster.com will give you 10% off of this beautiful tiki to wish you good luck!!
Mahalo Nui Loa,
~Tikimaster

My thoughts exactly.
I saw someone else's interpretation of this piece as "Pele" the other day and just thought "huh"? - there is nothing remotely female about it! The headdress is obviously based on the niho palaoa (sp?) whale tooth ornaments. I see this figure as just another style of representing an ali'i.

According to the definitive source (Hawaiian Sculpture):

Quote:

The exaggerated chest line has led some to consider these images to be female gods (the image in figure 6 is designated as the goddess Pele), but this is simply a stylisation, similar to the thickening of the calves and other volume expansions."

In other words, it is an exaggerated male figure. Female deity figures are almost unheard of in classical Polynesian sculpture.

Edit: to say "almost unheard of" is probably a little harsh (for Hawaii at least) - there are some Hawaiian gals, a handful out of the 160-odd in the book, but the boobs are very rounded in form and separated from the chest, and none of them appear to have head-dresses. Apparently the crest can be also be seen as a spine or rainbow too, depending who you believe. Just goes to show hard it is to produce an accurate background for any of these ancient pieces....
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